Dependencies

Linking Items so Date Changes to One “Cascade” Through the Linked Items

You can link items on the Gantt chart together to form “dependencies”. Once this is done, changes to the dates of one item in the chain of linked items can cascade down to the following items.

Please note that this kind of cascading date change is an option in SeedCode Calendar and does not automatically happen even if you link items together in a dependency. You have to explicitly ask for your date changes to cascade. Here’s how to do that…

From the Gantt chart click on any item you’d like to include in a dependency- for best results, filter the chart to show just one project’s items first. You’ll be taken to the Edit Appointment screen; click the “More” tab and you’ll see a small button on the right hand side that says “show dependency”. Click that.

You’ll now be on the Dependency screen. Here you can elect to include or exclude project items from the dependency. Note that only items from the selected item’s project are available (or items from the selected item’s phase if it is part of a project phase). Add or remove items from the dependency by clicking the checkbox to the right of each item’s row.

When you’re ready to edit an item’s date, select the item in question and change its start or end date using the fields at the top of the screen.

Note that only items which are associated with a project, and set to show on the Gantt chart can be included in a dependency.

Making Cascades Happen All the Time

If you want every date change made in SeedCode Calendar to effect a cascade if there are dependent items, you’ll need to make some changes to the code.

Remember, cascading date changes can be kind of cumbersome to enter and take a moment to process, so you’ll be feeling that “moment” every time you edit a date anywhere in the solution. We recommend that you keep this as an alternate data entry format rather than trying to enforce the cascade every time.

The modification you’ll make is to deny browse mode entry to every date field. Instead, you’ll cause each date field to run a script that a) tests if the item is in a dependent chain, associated with a project, and set to show on the Gantt chart b) takes the user to that appointment’s/activity’s record Edit Appointment Mini Window and then c) runs the “Item Dependency ( Operation )” script with a parameter of “Operation = Begin”.